More Tickets to Craft Feast. Thank you to everyone who signed up and to everyone on the waitlist for Craft Feast. In hopes of getting a few more of you in, we're extending our hours through 4pm. On Thursday, November 2nd at 9am we'll be releasing more tickets on Resy. Please set your alarms as we anticipate a quick sell-out.
Friendsgiving Feasts. Inquire here for giant rabbit pies and jiggly orange-Campari jellies.
Pies with Angela Pinkerton. Angela Pinkerton, the brilliant baker behind the Pie Society, is firing-up her ovens to collaborate with us on Thanksgiving sweets. Pies will be available for preorder on our website (coming soon!) and for pick up in Pine Plains on both Tuesday, November 21st and Wednesday, November 22nd. In addition to the usual suspects, we've collaborated on a "Queen of Puddings Pie" layered with cranberry-bramley jam and a toasted, brown sugar meringue.
Game Feast til midnight. This one's for those of you who'd like to celebrate New Year's Eve with 30-140 friends, well-hung roasted game, and a champagne tower. Party planning starts here.
Pine Plains 38th Festival of Lights. Saturday, November 25th. Every year, Pine Plains invites the community to decorate its town center. As is tradition, Ibis Guzman will be MC-ing the parade from our balcony. We will be serving game chili, cookies and cider in our shop and on the lawn from 3-5pm. Meals are $5. All proceeds benefit the town of Pine Plains.
Please note that we will be closed on Thursday, November 24th for Thanksgiving.
To cut through the month's sweet, spiced notes, we're spooning wood-roasted cranberries over our buttermilk sherbet. A puckering end to your meal.
And now for an interview with our Craft Feast cohost, Deborah Needleman
In the last year of a decades long magazine career during which she would be the founder and editor-in-chief of Domino, creator of The Wall Street Journal’s “Off Duty” lifestyle section and editor-in-chief of WSJ. Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Deborah Needleman discovered a video of basket weaving as part of her research for an article. Captivated by this slow, intentional and ancient practice, Deborah had a sudden and life-changing realization that she wanted to work with her hands. She ultimately departed the magazine world, moved to the Hudson Valley and immersed herself in the art of basket weaving. A complete midlife reinvention that led her to grow her own willow and weave her highly sought-after designs–lucky for us. Here we speak with Deborah about what inspires her, the artist’s solitude and her dream craft collab.
It’s interesting that weaving is a craft through which histories and origin stories are told and passed down. Beyond working with your hands, was there something about weaving that consciously (or unconsciously) satisfied the storyteller in you?
I don’t think of myself as a storyteller. I’ve never related to that term, perhaps because my mind works conceptually rather than narratively. I think I’m trying to share ideas that I find beautiful, rather than stories. I’m drawn to the ideas that might underpin a story. It’s ideas, concepts, and ways of thinking or living in the world that I find inspiring and, actually, life enhancing. I’ve loved sharing those ideas with others, both as a magazine editor and now as a craftsperson. And as you say, it’s the histories and traditions that are embodied in these baskets that I find so beautiful and compelling. I’m constantly amazed by the resourcefulness of people throughout the world to use what’s on hand in their landscape to solve their needs. And I find it so remarkable, the ways that people have figured out how to resolve a bunch of loose sticks or grasses so seamlessly into a useful 3-dimensional object. And, as with folk clothing, architecture, pottery, jewelry and so on, people have always rendered these objects in ways that go beyond the merely utilitarian. It’s not so much that the baskets have decorative ornamentation, but that beauty is intrinsic to them. People throughout history have created baskets that satisfied not only utility but also the very real aesthetic needs within us. Whether that was always conscious, I don’t know, but I think the most beautiful things in the world serve a human purpose.
What is fixed or routine about your creative process? And what is fluid?
I try so hard to keep myself to a schedule. An ideal day is waking, exercising, dealing with emails, and then into the studio by 10 or 11. I have to schedule time to experiment with materials and sketch new ideas. Otherwise, I would end up doing that all day and never make the things that have been commissioned!
What do you love about the solitary nature of weaving? And what do you find challenging?
It was challenging initially to have no one to depend on but myself for the course of each day, but I have loved the solitary nature of it from the beginning. I’m not sure if I maxed out on the social nature of my previous jobs, but I had a pretty deep yearning to work on my own, which was something I never did before. Even as a child I hated playing alone as I felt I didn’t exist except in relation to other people. Now I feel most myself and most happy working in a solitary way. And then I love getting to be with people in a purely social way rather than in a work context.
In a world of increasingly fast paced technological advancements, what can the slow art of craft teach us?
Craft is part of what it means to be human – to be engaged with the natural world and to make things with our skills and our hands. Technology can make things easier and faster and reduce friction, but it does not seem human in the same way. There isn’t the same kind of meaning inherent in technology;. Technology can perhaps be elegant, but it doesn’t satisfy our need for beauty or significance. I also love how craft connects us to other people throughout time; we’re engaging in an act that humans have engaged in since they first formed communities.
Is there a through line in the group of craftspeople you’ve assembled for the inaugural Craft Feast at Stissing House?
I think all the people we’ve gathered are knowledgeable about the histories and traditions they work in, even the dealers and small fashion brands we’ve assembled. But each has also made their own mark on their craft or through their shops. Their objects are reflections of themselves, their points of view, and their values. And Clare and I love the work that each of them does, so they also share that as well!
Favorite album or type of music you like to listen to while weaving?
I usually listen to audiobooks while I work. It satisfies my urge to feel like I’m being productive if I'm accomplishing two things at once – reading and weaving. Sometimes I go hard into one musician or band for a period, lately that’s been Townes Van Zandt, Leonard Cohen, and there was a brief, slightly embarrassing, Jim Croce moment. But I also like weaving in silence, especially on a beautiful day with the windows and doors open.
You’re having friends over for dinner – what do you make?
I take my cues from what’s in the garden, but a roast chicken is always easy and good (slathered with butter and with a halved lemon and halved head of garlic) and then Marian Burros simple plum cake recipe from the New York Times (for which you can easily sub in other fruits). My husband has been cooking from Clare’s newsletter lately.
What’s your dream craft collaboration?
I’ve been knocking around ideas with the ceramicist Paula Grief about doing something that combines weaving and pottery, which is exciting. A collaboration with any artist or maker I admire is always stimulating.
You’ve traveled all over the world in the name of research and exploration. What never before visited destination is at the top of your list and why?
I would love to go to Ireland to learn about its rural basketry traditions, and particularly to the gorgeous village of Loch Na Fooey where the master basketmaker Joe Hogan has lived since the 70’s. My dream is to spend a few months apprenticing with him, but he’s retired from teaching so it’s unlikely to happen. Joe sometimes still makes traditional Irish baskets, but is more devoted to making objects of his own design these days, like enormous woven pods he made for a Loewe fashion show, and the most remarkable woven nests, that seemed to be made by someone half bird, half basket maker!
I would also love to be given carte blanche to dig around in the archives of Natural History and Botanical Museums around the world to see the collections of objects made from plants buried in back rooms and drawers.
A craftsperson(s) people should know/follow?
A few of my teachers who work within the traditions of their regions, but have taken the work to an incredible, new level: The Irish-born Annemarie O’Sullivan in Sussex; Francois Desplanches in the Dordogne, and Monica Guilera Subirana in Catalonia. All worth following on Instagram for anyone interested.
A recent curiosity or obsession?
I’ve been obsessively reading 19th century fiction lately. I think it might just be a way of burying my head in the sand when the present seems so unruly and frightening, but I’ve been reading and rereading Charlotte Bronte, George Elliot, Henry James, Edith Wharton. They were each so groundbreaking and modern in many ways though.
Maybe a more related obsession is my passion for 18th and 19th century botanical replicas that were made for scientific research. It was a period when craftsmen and scientists worked together, making models for study and teaching that were really works of art in their own right. There are the glass flowers at Harvard, wax flowers in Florence, and botanical replicas made from resin, paper, and other materials in collections.
An unusual source of inspiration?
It’s not unusual, I’m afraid, but nature is what fuels me.
Is there one piece you’ve made that you’re especially proud of or connected to?
I wrapped a chair in woven rush for the Italian magazine Cabana, and I would love to have the chance to weave over or wrap other pieces of furniture. I don’t know what it is about wrapping objects, but I love doing that, it’s like protecting them or covering them with nature.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Annemarie O’Sullivan once told me, “You have to make a lot of shit baskets before you make a good one.” I wish I didn't have to console myself with that bit of wisdom so often! But I do think it’s a good reminder anytime we try something new.